


Pink Afternoon, Burgundy Midnight

by Mellojelllo



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cinderella Elements, EMT Ian Gallagher, Emetophobia, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Miscommunication, Original Character(s), Patsy's Pies (Shameless US), Slow Burn, Tattoo Artist Mickey Milkovich
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29919321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellojelllo/pseuds/Mellojelllo
Summary: Mickey finds himself trapped in a twisted pseudo-Cinderella situation as he searches for the man who left a sweater at his apartment.Or, looking for something has four stages: Realizing you've lost it, turning everything upside-down to find it, the mortification of learning that it was right under your nose the entire time, and turning everything right-side up again.
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Comments: 15
Kudos: 54





	1. Prologue: Soft Sounds, Harsh Realities

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure: this is going to be a very very slow burn.   
> The prologue is pretty much just exposition, so it picks up more after. Hold out for me, please!!

The shuffling of cotton sheets. Bare feet falling on hardwood floor. A lighter. Soft breathing. The creak of weight leaving an old mattress. Feet slapping hardwood floor. Running water. The clink of a glass. Paper ripping. A pen scratching. Sneakers hitting hardwood floor. A door squeaking open and gently clicking closed. 

All sounds that Mickey hears as he lays in bed, pretending to sleep as the man he’d fucked after he’d drunk half the bar following a verbal altercation with his terrible father slowly makes his way out of his shoebox apartment. 

Well, Mickey thinks that’s what happened. 

He remembers fighting with his dad, he remembers drinking, and he remembers lying in the backseat of a moving car. Everything else is hazy, and his head is pounding. He rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms and blinks them open, squinting at the bright sun streaming in through his curtains. Mandy had talked him into getting the place because of its “natural light,” but that is not a benefit when you have a hangover from hell. 

He throws his top arm over to pull himself onto his back and stares at his water-stained ceiling. The room smells like someone else’s cigarettes. 

He rolls onto his other side. There’s a cup of water on his nightstand, some red pills, his phone, and a note tucked under the wilting roses he’d bought to make his trashy apartment look fancier. 

He uses his outstretched arm to pull himself forward across the bed, close enough to the nightstand to snatch the note with his pointer and middle fingers.

_Hey Mickey,  
I drove you home last night, you threw up in my car and cried about it. I figure you don’t remember.   
I left you some Advil and water.   
If you were wondering, we didn’t have sex. I just thought you were going to die in your sleep and I have medical training. _

_Feel better soon. :)_

Mickey rubs his hand over his face again and cringes. He cried? Gross. 

He inches towards his nightstand until he can grab the water and take his Advil. The cold water soothes his scratchy throat.

He can hear his labored breaths in 4K HD fucking surround sound in the silence. 

The fluid in his inner ear takes a full business week to catch up with him as he struggles to sit up.

“Like a fuckin’ tilt-a-whirl” Mickey mumbles to himself, mustering enough strength to stand up and shuffle to the bathroom. He’s glad to see that his TV is still there, ‘cause he was kind of worried that the guy that he didn’t have sex with stole it. Mickey probably would’ve if it were the other way around, it’s a damn good TV. He rounds the corner into his bathroom and is sucker-punched by his appearance in his dirty mirror. His eyes are puffy and red and his hair is sticking out in all directions. Self-loathing is not a term he’d usually apply to himself, but...  
fuck if he doesn’t loath himself right now. 

The mint green bathroom tile is freezing; the mystery guy had taken Mickey’s shoes off, but not his socks. Mickey’s glad a stranger didn’t touch his feet. He doesn’t trust that shit.  
The curtains billow with the light morning breeze. He just stands in the middle of his tiny bathroom and stares at them for a minute—fluttering like butterfly wings—feeling like he should be thinking about something but unsure of what to think about. He slowly turns back around to his mirror, making shameful eye contact with himself. 

He brushes his teeth to get the awful taste out of his mouth and strips off his old, nasty clothes for the shower. He sits and lets the water pour over him until it runs cold, at which point he fights the sticky shower knob to turn it off and grabs one of his nice towels because he needs to feel something soft and clean on his skin. 

The world slogs around him. 

Toweling off makes him feel considerably better, so he wanders out into the living room to make some coffee. 

And then he sees it.

A burgundy hoodie sitting in a lump on the floor, alone, discarded. Basically yelling, “Look at me, bitch!”   
Mickey does not own a burgundy hoodie.   
He shuffles over to it and crouches down, eyeing it warily. His fingers brush the sleeve. It’s soft, like it’s been through the wash a thousand times. Doesn’t seem like it has anthrax on it or whatever. 

He picks up the sweater hesitantly and stares at it for a moment. It’s large. That cigarette smell from before wafts off of it, along with a woody cologne and something Mickey can’t identify. 

Suddenly, last night. 

_“Mickey, stay still.”_

_“Fuck you.”_

_“I’m doin’ you a favor. Stop moving around back there.”_

_“Hell no. I’m a free man, I’ve got fucking free will. You can’t… control me and shit.”_

_“The fuck are you talking about?”_

_“Everyone’s always tryin’ to control me. Mickey, stop fucking moving. Mickey, pay your rent. Mickey, marry a… woman. Mickey, put on some fucking clothes. Mick…”_

The smell of the guy who took him home’s car.

Mickey sort of wishes he hadn’t remembered. 

Suddenly, he’s confronted with a new dilemma. He needs to return the sweater, but he has no idea who the man is or where he lives. He could go back to the bar where they met, but the guy was barely drinking and was probably just someone else’s designated driver. The only thing that’s clear to him is that he needs to find this dude because he’ll die of guilt if he has to hold onto this stupid sweater any longer than he needs to. 

It’s nagging at Mickey, the fact that he’d spent a night with this faceless, figureless being. Only his voice and smell lingered. He needs to see his face, if only to get that fucking weird “something is missing that shouldn’t be” feeling out from under his skin. Like a ghost passed through his home, pausing only to rest on his bed. 

There are only so many men in Chicago, he decides. And half of those men are gay, and half of those gay men would fit into a large burgundy hoodie, and half of those men would choose to wear the hoodie, and half of those men live on the Southside, and half of THOSE men wouldn’t steal someone’s phone and TV. So he has around 41,000 people that could potentially be the person he’s looking for. No sweat. 

Mickey takes the sweater over to the couch and flops down to inspect it. An “i” is written in faded sharpie on the fraying tag. One of the strings has been chewed on, so the guy definitely has teeth, which rules out another half. There’s some change, a balled-up straw wrapper, a lighter, a punch card with 2 stamps left for an ice cream store that Mickey’s walked by once or twice, and a sticky granola bar wrapper in the pockets. 

He leans his head against the back of the couch. Thinks. 

He rises, pauses to quell the nausea, and starts to rifle through his kitchen drawers.

There are way too many knives and guns in his drawers and he has no clue where most of them came from. 

Eventually, he digs up a pen and a pad of paper with some random birds on it. The heading says some shit about the Illinois State Bird, so this must’ve been free. The pen was definitely also free because it still has the plastic rose from the doctor’s office taped on. 

So, Mickey sits back down on the couch and writes a list, feeling like fucking Nancy Drew. 

_Things I know:  
-wears red sweater  
-likes ice cream from Dorothy’s Ice Cream   
-been somewere with straws  
-has car that needs to be cleaned/got cleaned   
-smokes and needs a new lighter  
-name has i in it  
-out $1.67   
-likes bad granola Bars  
-goes to gay bar in Southside some times   
-has medical training_

_Things I don’t Know:  
-  
_

He stills. He isn’t really sure what he doesn’t know, because he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know he doesn’t know. He needs to fill out his list, though, so he makes some shit up.

_Things I don’t Know:  
-name  
-job  
-locashion _

Seems solid.

All he has to do is knock on every door in the kingdom until he finds who this glass slipper belongs to.

Or whatever.


	2. SNAKE!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mickey must reconcile being a working adult with his personal issues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where it starts to get frustrating.   
> The two major original characters are introduced in this chapter.

Morning autumn air nips at Mickey’s face when he steps out of his apartment. He pulls his coat tighter around his chest, his eyes flitting back and forth across the street. He should have worn a hat.

A wrinkled old woman sits cross legged on the sidewalk next to a beat-up CD player and a solo cup, leaning against his building and singing along to _Le Vie en rose._ Her voice crackles, muddled by what is clearly years of damage from smoking, but it’s hauntingly beautiful in a way Mickey can’t describe. Maybe he’s just feeling uncharacteristically generous, or maybe it’s the $1.67 he recently came into, but he drops a dollar into her cup with an awkward smile. She responds to the gesture with a toothy grin and winks her bulbous eye, at which point Mickey books it around the block. 

“Fucking creepy-ass old hag,” He whispers to himself as he pulls out a cigarette and his lighter. A blonde lady in the ad for allergy medication that’s spread out on the bench behind him stares him down. The woman’s singing still faintly hums in his ears, he thinks she might have restarted the song. 

“ _Quand il me prend dans ses bras  
Il me parle l'a tout bas  
Je vois la vie en rose_”

The lyrics would probably be pretty if Mickey understood a single word of French, which he doesn’t. He throws his cigarette butt on the ground and extinguishes its embers with his boot’s toe, grinding it into the cement. 

Her voice follows him down the street and into the crowded L, where he has to choose between sitting with a random stranger or standing. He opts to stand, awkwardly folding in on himself so as to not brush knees with the tall guy in front of him. He looks familiar, but Mickey can’t put his finger on why. Maybe he was a client at Mickey’s tattoo place or something. The man is grinning at something on his phone, too engrossed to even notice Mickey’s presence, and Mickey (against his better judgement) peers over to see what it is—it’s a dog wearing a Halloween costume. Mickey watches him save the image and text it to someone, who quickly replies with “Haha. We doing lunch today?” 

He looks away because he knows he’s being creepy and doesn’t want to get his ass beat by some giant redhead on the train at 10 am. He needs his ribs intact now that he has a job that’s both legal and enjoyable. Plus, he has the added task of finding that guy and returning the sweater that’s burning a hole in his backpack. 

Mickey works in a quaint little tattoo parlor tucked between a cheap diner and some brick apartments. Looking back, he couldn’t have possibly pictured himself working as a tattoo artist, let alone somewhere _quaint_. Drawing was more of a secret hobby than a career opportunity and didn’t really lend itself to anything other than room decorations and forging signatures. He was getting his “Fuck U-Up” touched up one day and he asked his artist how they got into it, so one thing led to another and… now he’s working at _Pink Afternoon Tattoo_ and eating pancakes for lunch every day. 

Mickey gets off at his stop and speedwalks the few blocks to the shop. Amy, the owner, greets him when she hears the glittery jingle of the welcome bell.

She pauses her tattoo and waves a black-gloved hand, “Heya, Mickey.”

“Hey Amy. Busy day?” He asks, setting his backpack down at his station.

“Not too bad. You?”

“Shouldn’t be. The Snake is comin’ back, though.” 

Amy laughs at Mickey’s expense. The Snake is their nickname for this burly 40-something man who has like 30 snake tattoos on different parts of his body. He always calls on the phone and asks for “Milky Milkovich”, and he always cries during the tattoo. 

She grins a shit-eating grin, “What’s he want this time?” 

Mickey rolls his eyes. “You really gonna make me answer that?”

“Yeah.” She turns to her client, “I’m almost done.” 

“He wants a snake on his lower back. A fucking snake tramp stamp.” 

Amy’s client laughs too. Mickey hates his life. 

As he’s prepping his station, he gets a call from some random number that he doesn’t recognize. He figures it’s another telemarketer—he’s constantly fending off people asking him to buy car insurance and telling him there’s criminal activity on his social security number, whatever that means. He likes to answer them when he’s in a bad mood so he can cuss out a stranger who deserves it instead of creating problems in his real-life relationships. It’s free therapy.   
He just lets this one ring until the caller hangs up. 

——-----

The Snake (real name Paul) comes in shortly after Mickey gets his station set up. He’s out of place in the white-walled studio with his shiny bald head and EMT uniform.

Mickey finds his sketches and shows them to The Snake, who loves them. 

“You know the phrase ‘lie back and think of England?’” Mickey whispers to Amy as he grabs something from the back. She elbows him in the side. 

Brushing her shaggy bangs to the side, she bites, “You’re not fucking him, Mickey. Do your job.” 

“You’re not the one that has to tattoo his ass.” 

She puts on some 80’s Japanese pop song—she was born in Japan and always plays music that she says her mom loves. 

Mickey emerges from the back room, lies back (figuratively), and thinks of the mystery guy. How he’s occupying too much space in his head for someone that barely exists. 

The snake tramp stamp turns out fucking awesome for what it is, all twisty and evil and dripping with anguish. Mickey has to disinfect his whole station like four fucking times to get The Snake’s weird cologne smell off, which sours the good mood he was in from doing a good job and getting money. 

“Can you believe The Snake is an EMT?” Amy snickers as Mickey cleans.

“He’s freaky. I’d rather die than have him do mouth to mouth on me.” Mickey replies. They both shudder at the thought. “You think every Chicago paramedic has a fuckin’ signature animal? Like if this place catches fire I might have to get oxygen from a fish guy? Or, uh… if I get in a car crash they’ll send a horse guy?” He’s only kind of joking. 

Amy pauses for a moment, probably to think. “Who do you think the sexiest animal guy would be?”

Mickey considers. Amy looks at him expectantly. “Bird guy, easy. Free spirit and all that shit. I don’t even know what the fuck snakes are supposed to mean.” 

Amy obviously doesn’t know either. “I think a lion guy could be cool, but they can be so tacky.”

There’s an awkward silence, filled only by the clattering and shifting of Mickey putting his cleaning supplies back. “What’s your next client coming in for?” He eventually questions. 

“Cover-up. Something about his mom’s tits?” 

“Jesus, good fucking luck. I’m gonna get lunch.” 

He returns his supplies to the back room and steps outside to smoke and order the same banana pancakes he gets every day. He’d told Amy that they’re basically health food because they have fruit in ‘em. She’d called him a dumbass. 

The heating in the diner is broken, so it’s fucking freezing. He sits in his usual booth next to the window, and his usual waitress yells, “The usual?” at him. He gives a thumbs up. 

“Your tattoo place is the only good thing to come out of gentrification. We get, like, 8 extra customers a day plus you and Amy.” She says as she pours his coffee. 

“Just ‘cause it’s clean doesn’t mean it’s gentrified. You wanna get a tattoo from some place where they don’t clean? That’s everywhere fucking else around here.” He rants, eyebrows raised, though there’s no bite to it. 

“I’m not judgin’. You did a great job,” She holds up her arm; it says _Warrior_ in neat cursive. “I sent my brother to Amy. Girl power and all that, wanted to remind him that women can be good artists too. His appointment is...” She checks her phone. “Right now.” 

“It healed real nice.” 

“I just followed your instructions,” she smiles. “Lemme get your pancakes.” 

He eats slowly, allowing himself to EXPERIENCE the pancakes. That’s how his waitress always puts it. She says, “you can’t just eat ‘em, you’ve got to EXPERIENCE ‘em. That’s what I tell my little siblings, anyway.” 

Mickey’s pretty sure she just talks to him when he comes in and she’s bored, but she’s interesting, so he doesn’t mind. He likes to take long lunches too, taking two smoke breaks where he EXPERIENCES his cigarettes and EXPERIENCES the diner’s mediocre coffee.   
Amy always feels the need to chit-chat when he’s around, so being gone helps her focus. She also likes him to be out of the room during cover ups when he can help it, ‘cause he accidentally slipped up and said some rude shit _one time._

His pancakes are good, as usual. He douses them with syrup until they’re almost too sweet and scrolls through his social media while he eats. The news is bad. Mandy won’t stop posting thirst traps with captions like “baddest bitch on the block” that make him want to crawl out of his skin. Sandy got a new piercing. The shop posted a tattoo he did yesterday. Amy got a haircut that he didn’t notice. V from the Alibi went to a park with her kids. Mickey really needs to find friends that aren’t his family or boss. 

When Mickey returns to Pink Afternoon, Amy’s client has already left.

“How’d it go?” He asks, flopping down on his work chair. 

“Good, the guy was really nice. High pain tolerance. And,” she runs over to Mickey, taking tiny little steps. “You’ll never believe the story behind his old tattoo. His mom fucking DIED, so he went to this rando artist with a picture of her face, but he misheard or some shit and tattoed massive TITS on his back. Heavy linework, too” She whispers, eyes wide.

“Holy shit. How’d you fix it?”

“I gave her a shirt.” 

Mickey bursts out laughing. “Your idea or his?” 

“It was a collaboration. I wanted to have rainbows coming out of her neck, but...” She waves her hand around in a vaguely dismissive gesture. 

“Fuckin’ crazy, Amy.” 

——-----

That evening, Mickey finds himself back at the bar. 

He sits on a plastic barstool, nursing a cheap beer and listening to too-loud pop hits. He scans the dimly lit room. There’s an old guy staring him down like he’s about to become his prize-winning county fair pig, some twink who’s a little _too_ into the song, and a guy in a suit who is definitely selling hard drugs.

Nobody’s face stands out to him, but he’s not even really sure what he’s looking for—Mickey only remembers the mystery guy’s voice. 

He scrunches his nose when he sips his beer, regretting the taste. He’s not fancy, he’s not gonna drink fucking rosé or anything, but this shit tastes awful. He can’t get anything good ‘cause he can’t be hungover at work the next day. Though, he considers getting blackout drunk to bring the guy back again, like a homing beacon. He’s kind of counting on the other guy recognizing him rather than the other way around.

Mickey waits for two and a half hours. People cycle through the bar, drinking and dancing and leaving in a blur of heat and color. He sucks down three awful beers because he has to drink to sit at the bar and he doesn’t want to dance, but he also doesn’t want to spend all his Snake Money on this. Sitting and waiting. Sitting and waiting. Song after song after song after song, a mix of agonizing slowness and unbearable speed; pounding bass and sweat; men and one woman who thought he was a butch lesbian brushing shoulders with him; nothing. Nobody coming up to him and saying, “Hey, I drove you home the other day and left my sweater at your place. My name starts with an ‘i’ and I like ice cream from Dorothy’s.”   
Eventually, tired of scanning every face he sees for recognition, he throws in the towel. He slaps a crumpled 10 on the sticky bartop and exits, feeling fucking stupid as he waddles out with his little backpack. 

He isn’t sure what he expected.

It’s not like the man was supposed to meet him there or anything, he wasn’t stood up. 

The L is nearly empty during his ride home, save for a few bums and a bedraggled college student.   
Though it’s gross, Mickey leans his head against the cool window and watches the city rush by. He’s mostly just pissed that he wasted two hours of his life on something stupid. There were so many other things he could’ve been doing, like sleeping, or… well, that’s it. He doesn’t do much (it’s the principle of the thing, really). Instead, he’s looking at Chicago through a glass filter and clutching a bag to his chest. 

The train screeches to a halt at his stop. Mickey swings the backpack over his shoulder as he quickly exits and hops over the bumpy yellow safety line. He climbs up the stairs, around the block, past the woman who’s so fucking thrilled that her seasonal allergies are gone, and up another set of stairs into his building. He walks through the entryway and up 2 more flights of stairs into his third-floor apartment. 

Jesus fucking Christ, he’s sick of stairs. He’s gonna have the burliest thighs in the Southside by June. They’ll have to start calling him “melon crusher Milkovich.” 

He drops the backpack on the ground, kicks his shoes off, and shuffles to his bathroom to get ready for bed, feeling utterly defeated. 

“Maybe tomorrow.” He mutters to himself as he climbs under the covers after thoroughly washing the L train window off his face. 

_Je vois la vie en rose_

Maybe tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Missed connections!!!!   
> Song: Le Vie en rose by Edith Piaf
> 
> Feedback is appreciated :)


	3. Ice-olation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mickey gets ice cream and psychoanalyzes himself.

In retrospect, going to the ice cream shop without a plan probably wasn’t the best idea. Mickey felt so badass that morning, pulling on his coat and tucking the folded list in his back pocket. Ready to face the fucking world. Ready to face this fucking guy. 

He’d awoken to torrential rain pelting his roof, which should have been the first sign that this was going nowhere. Violent squalls rattled the building and blasted frigid air through his broken bathroom window, wafting a biting chill through his room. Mickey disregarded the inclement weather, focusing solely on his objective. His teeth chattered as he pulled on the thickest socks he could find and hobbled to the kitchen to heat up some coffee. He peered outside while he drank—the trees lining his block were soggy and leafless, the sky a menacing marengo grey.

His umbrella had nearly blown away during his walk to the train, but he’d soldiered on with the understanding that he could potentially finish what he’d started. 

But nobody gets ice cream at 10 am on a rainy day; Mickey’s standing in the middle of the store holding his dripping umbrella and he feels obligated to get something because he’s there and that’s just the polite thing to do, but he’s never been there before and he doesn’t know what to get, and the cashier is staring at him and he’s staring back and he’s looking at the ice cream flavors like he could have any idea what’s good when he didn’t come there for ice cream and he’s the only one in the store and she’s quirking her eyebrow at him and he’s rubbing the back of his neck and just thinking, “what the fuck am I doing?” 

This place makes him feel like he went through a time machine. The walls are offensively turquoise and lined with upholstered booths, and there’s a foggy gumball machine by the front door. It smells like fresh waffle cones and dust. It’s obviously one of those “‘ol reliable ma and pa” shops where they don’t have to worry about upkeep or changing the interior design because they’ve had the same customers for the past sixty years. 

The cashier straightens her posture as he steps forward, his shoes squeaking as they slip against the blue and white tile. “Hi! What can I get for ya?” She asks cheerily, her red-grey ponytail swishing when she speaks. The tag pinned onto her striped apron reads, “Becca”. 

“Yeah, can I get, uh…” he says the first flavor he sees, “cotton candy?”

Not what he would have gone for, ideally. Complete waste of money, but he’s going to eat it anyway. 

“Cone or cup?”

“Gimme a cup.” 

“That’ll be $3.50,” Becca holds out her hand, wiggling her fingers. Her garish pink nails glint under the fluorescent lights. 

Mickey fishes a 5 out of his wallet and throws it on the counter, shifting anxiously. Becca gingerly hands him his change, and he drops the coins in the tip jar. They clink loudly against the bottom. 

And then he gets an idea. He figures he at least owes the mystery guy this much. 

“I’ve got one of those punch card things.” Mickey fishes around in his backpack for the card and pulls it out of the sweater pocket. Becca narrows her eyes at him.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.” She wrinkles her nose, but her tone remains light. 

“You like, know everyone that comes in this place?” 

“The fire station is right around the corner. They’re the only ones that get cards. I’ve been working here for 20 years—my ma owns the place—so I generally know who comes around.” 

So this guy is a firefighter.

“I, uh…” Mickey stares down at the wooden counter. “It belongs to a friend of mine, he works there. He left it at my place and he only has two left until he gets the free shit, so I thought I’d be a good friend and buy some ice cream.” He thinks it’s a decent lie. Becca licks her lips and tilts her head. 

“What’s your friend’s name?” She questions. 

Mickey wracks his brain for the names of any local firefighters. He’s only ever had to call the fire department once, when he started a small grease fire and couldn’t figure out how to extinguish it. 

Until he remembers that paramedics also work out of fire stations.

“Paul.” Mickey replies. He shifts his weight and raises his eyebrows. Becca’s intense scrutinizing gaze is only softened by the faint hum of Aretha Franklin over the speakers. He doesn’t even know why this matters so much, but something about getting caught lying seems so deeply mortifying that he doesn’t even want to bother confronting that reality. 

Eventually, Becca relaxes. “Oh, yeah, Paul. Great guy. Always gets mint chip. I’ll take the card.” 

Mickey relaxes too, and hands the card to her. She stamps it and passes it back.

“Have a good one… what’s your name?” 

“Mickey.” 

He takes his cotton candy ice cream to the metal tables outside. They’re mostly dry because they’re covered by striped umbrellas. Unfortunately, Mickey sits directly in a puddle. The freezing water soaks through his pants. 

“Fuck,” he whispers, fishing around in his pocket for the note. 

The ink is bleeding and it’s half-mush.

He knows if he stands it’ll look like he pissed himself, so he just sits in incredible discomfort, eats his ice cream, and watches the rain patter onto the asphalt.

Mickey only leaves because he has a client at noon. Luckily, there’s a glorious break in the clouds. 

As he begrudgingly stands to walk to Pink Afternoon, an ambulance parks. A tall ginger man and a woman with a ponytail hop out, laughing about something. A beam of warm sunlight falls on them, casting a faint, sort of ethereal glow over them. Mickey feels like he’s seen the man somewhere before. He’s not sure where. Maybe he was one of Amy’s clients. 

He shrugs off the strange feeling and strolls down the quiet sidewalk, simultaneously wrought with tumult and at incredible peace. 

————————

“Why is your mouth blue?” Amy asks immediately when Mickey comes through the door. “You look like you gave Papa Smurf a BJ.” 

Mickey puts his bag down and gives her the finger. “I got ice cream, bitch. Why is your face ugly?”

Amy slides off her seat behind the desk, wanders over to him, and punches him HARD in his non-dominant shoulder. He recoils, ‘cause it fucking hurts. “You’re terrible at insults. Why did you get ice cream at 11 in the morning on a rainy day? Hot date? Also, your ass is wet.” 

Mickey blanches at that. “No, I had some personal shit.”

She decks him in the arm again. He’s going to have a nasty bruise. “Which is Mickey code for hot date. Who was it?” 

The door jingles, signaling Mickey’s client’s arrival and the sweet, merciful end of Amy’s interrogation. 

His client wants a peach on the inside of her wrist because they’re her favorite fruit. 

The stories are his favorite part of his job—as Mickey’s finishing some delicate linework, his client starts talking.

“I’m also getting it because it’s my wife’s favorite fruit,” she explains. “She’s from this awful neighborhood, right, and her parents are the worst-”

“Hear hear” Mickey interrupts.

“So she was basically living off of 7-Eleven pop and Cheetos for most of her life. And she was like ‘okay, I’m going to die before I turn 25 if I keep living like this’, so she got a job at the summer camp that I worked at up north. Free housing for two weeks, free food, y’know. Great opportunity. Anyway, one day we were talking, and she told me she’d never eaten a peach before. I was shocked, ‘cause my parents were total health nuts, right, but I was like ‘okay, we’ve gotta get you a peach!’ So we snuck into the kitchen while the kids were in the pool and took some peaches. And that moment, her face when she took that first bite and was like, surprised, that’s when I realized I was gonna fall in love with her.” 

Mickey pauses the tattoo and looks up at her. Her eyes glimmer, and Mickey’s stupid sensitive side starts to claw its way out of his chest. 

“I feel like I should give you a fucking discount for that.” He remarks softly, going back to filling in color. She chuckles. 

“Mickey’s in a relationship too! But he won’t tell me about it.” Amy proclaims from the other side of the partition. Mickey groans.

“Jesus christ, don’t you have shit to do right now?” He yells back.

“Not until 3!” 

“Now I’m curious.” His client unnecessarily adds, flipping her beaded box braids over her shoulder. Mickey huffs out a breath. 

“Fuck it, fine. I’m not in a goddamn relationship, Amy. I got hammered a few days ago and some guy drove me home, but he left his sweater at my place and I’ve been tryin’ to return it. Only problem is, I don’t remember his name or what he looks like. I found a punch card for the ice cream store in the pocket and went to see if he was there. Happy?” Mickey does not include that the man slept in his bed, nor that they did not have sex, nor that he showed the most genuine consideration for Mickey’s well-being than anyone who wasn’t obligated to had in a while. 

“Oh, that’s sad.” Amy cringes. His client nods in agreement. “Did you give the sweater to the people at the ice cream place to return when he comes back?”

That thought hadn’t even remotely crossed his mind. “No. Didn’t wanna look like a stalker.”

“And what you were doing wasn’t stalking?” 

Mickey doesn’t reply. Briefly, the only sounds are the buzzing of the tattoo gun and that incessant Japanese city pop. 

Amy walks around the partition and leans on Mickey’s chair. “Any other info about him?” 

“He’s a fireman… well, he said he had medical training, so I guess he’s a paramedic or whatever. Uh, he eats granola bars, he either got his car cleaned or needs to fucking clean it, his name has an ‘i’ in it, he has teeth, he smokes, and he’s gay.” 

“Jesus, didja make a list or something?” 

Mickey sniffs. “Yeah.” 

“Why don’t I ask around, see if any gay EMS workers with teeth are missing a… what color is it?”

“Red hoodie.”

“Red hoodie.” Amy parrots. Mickey wipes down the tattoo one last time, inspecting his work before he declares it complete. 

“You’re all set. I’ll give you the aftercare instructions on your way out. Great story, by the way. Real sweet.” He tells his client, who looks at her tattoo and gives a thumbs up. 

“Thanks. I really like it.” His client beams.

He gives her the instructions and sends her on her way. As she leaves, she calls, “Good luck with your boy troubles, Mickey.”

Amy guffaws and punches his shoulder again. “She was cool.” 

“Hm.”

————————

As Mickey dithers around his apartment that evening, he sits down with the demons that live inside him or whatever the fuck he had heard on the trashy teen drama he watched while he ate his instant Mac and cheese. 

The fact of the matter is, Mickey isn’t stupid. He knows what’s up. 

And he knows that he’s incredibly lonely, which is driving him to do weird shit— like fucking Sherlock Holmes-ing a guy because he was nice to him while he was incapacitated. The only people he talks to are his family, Amy, cashiers and waiters, and his phone as he hangs up on that relentless telemarketer for the thousandth time. 

Mickey knows that’s tragic as fuck. 

But what’s he to do, right? He’s stuck in this sticky spiderweb and everywhere he turns there’s something that pulls him back in. After the bar didn’t work out, he had the ice cream shop. The ice cream shop gave him the fire station. He’s bound to get another limb tangled if he moves. 

Standing in his kitchen, drinking a beer and staring off into space, he understands that he’s tangled. 

When he falls asleep on his couch, alone, because he doesn’t feel like getting into bed, he realizes that the only way to escape is to allow the spider to cocoon him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed!  
> RIP Mickey's list.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Feedback is appreciated. Any spelling mistakes are intentional.


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